HOW vain and dull this common world must seem To such a One as thou, who should'st have talked At Florence with Mirandola, or walked Through the cool olives of the Academe: Thou should'st have gathered reeds from a green stream For Goat-foot Pan's shrill piping, and have played With the white girls in that Phaeacian glade Where grave Odysseus wakened from his dream. Ah! surely once some urn of Attic clay Held thy wan dust, and thou hast come again Back to this common world so dull and vain, For thou wert weary of the sunless day, The heavy fields of scentless asphodel, The loveless lips with which men kiss in Hell. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...A SHROPSHIRE LAD: 32 by ALFRED EDWARD HOUSMAN TO MY EXCELLENT LUCASIA, ON OUR FRIENDSHIP. 17TH JULY 1651 by KATHERINE PHILIPS MARCHING (AS SEEN FROM THE LEFT FILE) by ISAAC ROSENBERG ERRING IN COMPANY by FRANKLIN PIERCE ADAMS THE TRUCE by HARRY RANDOLPH BLYTHE |